Anxiety is basically a clinical term for fear which everyone at one time or another experiences with or without a diagnosis of some sort of anxiety “disorder.” Psychiatry pathologizes much of the normal human experience and in opposing fashion fear and/or anxiety is often referred to in Buddhism and other alternative philosophies as normal. A normal form of human suffering. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Stories of healing and transformation This post may be cut and pasted in its entirety and shared without further permission. These are all stories of recovery (or the word I prefer is transformation) that involve freedom from drugs/medications. Most everyone on these pages were told they would need psychiatric drugs for the rest of their… Continue Reading →
As our bodies heals from the iatrogenic injury caused by psychiatric drugs, the process of healing the autonomic nervous system demands the continual working with fear in the body. These drugs create post traumatic stress and exacerbate that which was already in our bodies.
Yoga is often helpful in the process of healing this insult to our nervous system.
Yoga is wonderful for training us to be with all of the sometimes uncomfortable sensations in our body whether we’ve been injured or not. This is a skill that can help support us in our lives in many different ways. Practicing and learning to be with discomfort is an important skill to have. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Why is it assumed that people need remain unaware of their physiological experience? This is exactly what meditation can attend to. It’s called “mindfulness” for a reason. It’s entirely possible to become aware of our bodies, minds and psyches. The fact that many of us are asleep does not mean we cannot wake up! This sort of knee-jerk conclusion that determines we are helpless in the face of all our physiology strips people of their inheritance. We can be AWARE. We can wake-up. We can heal ourselves. … [click on title to read and view more]
I am, now, grateful that I was forced onto what was often a heinously difficult path that psych drug withdrawal created because in the end, it was the only way for me to truly and deeply heal. The drugs weren’t just a dead end for me, they were slowly driving me downhill to my spiritual death. Getting off that ugly merry-go-round involved facing far worse in the short term but on the other side now, I see a freedom that simply wouldn’t have been possible if I’d stayed on those drugs. My experience is shared by many others. Again, if it’s not resonant for someone, that too is okay. I do not write assuming that all I say will have meaning for everyone. We are all on different paths. … [click on title to read and view more]
There’s a term in Buddhism, manasikara, which means attention. It’s a fundamental component of awareness because it directs the mind to it object — it’s the charioteer of the mind that directs it where to go. It comes in two forms: appropriate and inappropriate attention.
Anxiety is a form of inappropriate attention. A scripture describes a monk whose meditation practice revolved around obsessively ruminating on things that were making him unhappy. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
As my body heals from the iatrogenic injury caused by psychiatric drugs, the process of healing the autonomic nervous system demands the continual working with fear in the body.
This morning I did the below yoga session.
Yoga is wonderful for training us to be with the sometimes uncomfortable sensations in our body, which is a skill that can be transferred to our lives in a multiple number of ways. Practicing and learning to be with discomfort is an important skill to have. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Anxiety is basically a clinical term for fear which everyone at one time or another experiences with or without a diagnosis of some sort of anxiety “disorder.” Psychiatry pathologizes much of the normal human experience…
Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility or relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known. There is nothing mysterious about the anxious state; it leaves one teetering in an untenable and all too familiar isolation. There is rarely desire without some associated anxiety. We seem to be wired to have apprehension about that which we cannot control, so in this way, the two are not really complete opposites. But desire gives one a reason to tolerate anxiety and to push through it. … [click on title to read more]
Again Science Daily reports on the fact that psychotropic drugs impede people’s capacity to drive safely. The classes of drugs being talked about here are SSRI and SNRI antidepressants, benzodiazepines, and the z-drugs like Ambien and Lunesta. I know from having taken them that antipsychotics too are egregiously guilty for making people NOT ALERT. I don’t think this should surprise anyone as they are also call MAJOR TRANQUILIZERS. This is something I’ve written about several times because people on these medications are rarely aware or honest about how impaired they are on these medications. I know that even though I knew I was impaired the thought of not being able to drive was too frightening for me to deal with the situation responsibly. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Everything Matters 